Cooperative Wi-Fi-sharing: Encouraging fair play

Cooperation enables single devices or applications to establish systems that exceed the capabilities of single entities. A prime example for cooperation are Wi-Fi-sharing networks, in which multiple parties cooperatively share their resources, such as wireless access points and Internet uplinks, to form a large-scale Wi-Fi network that offers access to mobile users. Mobile users benefit from this network by gaining free network access at every access point of the network. However, such cooperation needs to be established in the first place by providing incentives to users to join the network. Furthermore, in an established network, users need incentives to behave cooperatively when using the network. Frameworks to provide incentives and to regulate user behavior in the presence of malicious parties can exist at multiple levels: The technical level inside the given network, a contractual level that regulates the operation of the network and the legislative level that establishes general rules for the operation of Wi-Fi-sharing networks. In this paper, we analyze requirements and mechanisms to establish such frameworks at each level and discuss possible solutions and existing examples.